#========================================================================
#
# Text::MetaText
#
# Version 0.22
#
# Copyright (C) 1996-1998 Andy Wardley .
# All Rights Reserved.
#
#------------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# README
#
# This file is contains relevant extracts from the MetaText documentation
# to provide an overview of MetaText and in particular, the installation
# process.
#
# For more information, see the full MetaText documentation and
# support files:
#
# Changes Somewhat verbose list of per-version changes.
# Todo Known bugs and possible future enhancements.
# Features A summary of MetaText features and brief comparison to
# other perl 'template' modules.
#
#========================================================================
#------------------------------------------------------------------------
# QUICK START
#------------------------------------------------------------------------
CPAN: /modules/by-authors/Andy_Wardley/Text-MetaText-.tar.gz
gunzip Text-MetaText-.tar.gz
tar xvf Text-MetaText-.tar
cd Text-MetaText-
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Text::MetaText;
my $mt = Text::MetaText->new();
print $mt->process_file($myfile);
print $mt->process_text($mytext);
#------------------------------------------------------------------------
# DOCUMENTATION EXTRACTS
#------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME
Text::MetaText - Perl extension implementing meta-language for
processing "template" text files.
SYNOPSIS
use Text::MetaText;
my $mt = Text::MetaText->new();
# process file content or text string
print $mt->process_file($filename, \%vardefs);
print $mt->process_text($textstring, \%vardefs);
# pre-declare a BLOCK for subsequent INCLUDE
$mt->declare($textstring, $blockname);
$mt->declare(\@content, $blockname);
SUMMARY OF METATEXT DIRECTIVES
%% DEFINE
variable1 = value # define variable(s)
variable2 = "quoted value"
%%
%% SUBST variable %% # insert variable value
%% variable %% # short form of above
%% BLOCK blockname %% # define a block 'blockname'
block text...
%% ENDBLOCK %%
%% INCLUDE blockname %% # include 'blockname' block text
%% INCLUDE filename %% # include external file 'filename'
%% INCLUDE file_or_block # a more complete example...
variable = value # additional variable definition(s)
if = condition # conditional inclusion
unless = condition # conditional exclusion
format = format_string # printf-like format string with '%s'
filter = fltname(params) # post-process filter
%%
%% TIME # current system time, as per time(2)
format = format_string # display format, as per strftime(3C)
%%
DESCRIPTION
MetaText is a text processing and markup meta-language which can
be used for processing "template" files. This module is a Perl 5
extension implementing a MetaText object class which processes
text files, interpreting and acting on the embedded MetaText
directives within.
Like a glorified pre-processor, MetaText can; include files,
define and substitute variable values, execute conditional
actions based on variables, call other perl functions or object
methods and capture the resulting output back into the document,
and more. It can format the resulting output of any of these
operations in a number of ways. The objects, and inherently, the
format and symantics of the MetaText langauge itself, are highly
configurable.
MetaText was originally designed to aid in the creation of html
documents in a large web site. It remains well suited for this
and similar tasks, being able to create web pages (dynamically
or statically) that are consistent with each other, yet easily
customisable:
* standard headers, footers and other elements can be defined in
separate files and then inserted into web documents:
%% INCLUDE header %%
* variables can be defined externally or from within a document,
then can be substituted back into the text. This is useful
for including your %% name %% or %% email %% address or any
other variable, and for encoding URL's or file paths that
can then be changed en masse. e.g.
* conditional actions can be made based on variable definitions,
allowing easily and instantly customisable web pages. e.g
%% INCLUDE higraphics/header if="higfx && userid != abw" %%
* blocks of text can be internally defined simplifying the
creation of repetitive elements. e.g.
%% BLOCK table_row %%

%% userid %%

%% name %%

%% ENDBLOCK %%
%% INCLUDE table_row userid=lwall name="Larry Wall" %%
%% INCLUDE table_row userid=tomc name="Tom Christiansen" %%
%% INCLUDE table_row userid=merlyn name="Randal L. Schwartz" %%
* in addition, the metapage utility is a script which can
automatically traverse document trees, processing updated
files to assist in web document management and other similar
tasks.
PREREQUISITES
MetaText requires Perl 5.004 or later. The Date::Format module
should also be installed. This is available from CPAN (in the
"TimeDate" distribution) as described in the following section.
The metapage utility also requires the File::Recurse module,
distributed in the "File-Tools" bundle, also available from
CPAN.
OBTAINING AND INSTALLING THE METATEXT MODULE
The MetaText module is available from CPAN. As the 'perlmod' man
page explains:
CPAN stands for the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network.
This is a globally replicated collection of all known Perl
materials, including hundreds of unbunded modules.
[...]
For an up-to-date listing of CPAN sites, see
http://www.perl.com/perl/ or ftp://ftp.perl.com/perl/ .
Within the CPAN archive, MetaText is in the "Text::" group which
forms part of the the category:
*) String Processing, Language Text Processing,
Parsing and Searching
The module is available in the following directories:
/modules/by-module/Text/Text-MetaText-.tar.gz
/authors/id/ABW/Text-MetaText-.tar.gz
For the latest information on MetaText or to download the latest
pre-release/beta version of the module, consult the definitive
reference, the MetaText Home Page:
http://www.kfs.org/~abw/perl/metatext/
MetaText is distributed as a single gzipped tar archive file:
Text-MetaText-.tar.gz
Note that "" represents the current MetaText Revision
number, of the form "0.18". See the REVISION manpage below to
determine the current version number for Text::MetaText.
Unpack the archive to create a MetaText installation directory:
gunzip Text-MetaText-.tar.gz
tar xvf Text-MetaText-.tar
'cd' into that directory, make, test and install the MetaText
module:
cd Text-MetaText-
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
The 't' sub-directory contains a number of small sample files
which are processed by the test script (called by 'make test').
See the README file in that directory for more information. A
logfile (test.log) is generated to report any errors that occur
during this process. Please note that the test suite is
incomplete and very much in an 'alpha' state. Any further
contributions here are welcome.
The 'make install' will install the module on your system. You
may need root access to perform this task. If you install the
module in a local directory (for example, by executing "perl
Makefile.PL LIB=~/lib" in the above - see `perldoc MakeMaker'
for full details), you will need to ensure that the PERL5LIB
environment variable is set to include the location, or add a
line to your scripts explicitly naming the library location:
use lib '/local/path/to/lib';
The metapage utility is a script designed to automate MetaText
processing of files. It can traverse directory trees, identify
modified files (by comparing the time stamp of the equivalent
file in both "source" and "destination" directories), process
them and direct the resulting output to the appropriate file
location in the destination tree. One can think of metapage as
the MetaText equivalent of the Unix make(1S) utility.
The installation process detailed above should install metapage
in your system's perl 'installbin' directory (try `perl '-
V:installbin'' to check this location). See the metapage
documentation (`perldoc metapage') for more information on
configuring and using metapage.
AUTHOR
Andy Wardley
See also:
http://www.kfs.org/~abw/
REVISION
$Revision: 0.22 $
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1996-1998 Andy Wardley. All Rights Reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the Perl Artistic License.
SEE ALSO
For more information, see the accompanying documentation and
support files:
README Text based version of this module documentation.
Changes Somewhat verbose list of per-version changes.
Todo Known bugs and possible future enhancements.
Features A summary of MetaText features and brief comparison to
other perl 'template' modules.
For information about the metapage utility, consult the specific
documentation:
perldoc metapage
or
man metapage
For more information about the author and other Perl development work:
http://www.kfs.org/~abw/
http://www.kfs.org/~abw/perl/
http://www.cre.canon.co.uk/perl/
For more information about Perl in general:
http://www.perl.com/